Tigers pull away, Clymer reaches milestone
Senior surpasses 3,000 career rushing yards
Legendary running backs tend to find their way to Northwestern Lehigh, from coach Josh Snyder’s latebrother,Brett,toHarryHallfrom 2012-2015whobrokeSnyder’sschool record of 4,281 career rushing yards.
While he isn’t quite into the 4,000 range,onFridaynightDaltonClymer became the third running back in schoolhistorytoreach3,000rushing yards in Northwestern Lehigh’s 35-6 road victory over Bangor in a Colonial-Schuylkill Gold Division clash.
“That puts him in pretty good company,”Snydersaid.“TheClymers havebeenwithforusthroughoutthe years. Dalton might be the best one out of the group.”
“It’s definitely a milestone for me. It wasn’t pretty, but we got the win and it’s a great achievement for me,” Clymer said.
The senior running back needed just 35 yards to reach his milestone, but powered his way to another 100-yard performance, tallying 113 yardsandatouchdownon22carries.
“Ican’tsayenoughabouttheoffensive line,” Clymer said. “That’s all on them. They did that.”
It was Clymer who opened the scoring on the night as he hauled in a slip screen to the left of the offensive line for a 32-yard touchdown to give the Tigers an early 8-0 lead.
A year removed from a 27-21 loss to the Slaters, where Northwestern Lehighthrewforjust49yardsonfour attempts, sophomore quarterback Shane Leh turned things around for theTigers,completing16of23passes for 235 yards and three touchdowns.
“They showed us a defense that we haven’t seen them play all year. We were struggling there in the box trying to figure that out,” Snyder said. “We’ve prided ourselves this year with Shane [Leh] and Mason [Bollinger] at quarterback being able to adjust. You saw that and we were throwing it around.”
DevonHildebrandwasthefavorite targetonthenight,pullinginapairof 14-yard touchdowns and racking up 95 receiving yards on seven catches for the Tigers.
Hildebrand’s first touchdown came with just 56 seconds remaininginthefirsthalfandgavetheTigers alargercushionheadingintohalftime with Bangor poised to receive the second-half kickoff.
The Slaters started with decent field position in the third quarter before Eli Zimmerman flipped the field with his league-leading sixth interception of the season in Northwestern’s secondary.
Zimmerman took that interception back about 20 yards, but it was his returns on special teams as well that constantly put his team in excellent field position.
“I give all that credit to the boys that block for me,” Zimmerman said. “They’re always opening up the holes to set up our offense in good field position. I’m always confident they’ll score.”
While the scoreboard indicated a dominant performance by Northwestern, the game itself reflected a muchclosermatchupthatleftBangor coach Paul Reduzzi proud of his team’s effort.
“We’re not upset with the way we played in terms of effort. I felt like both sides of the ball got the best out of our kids that they could give us,” Reduzzisaid.“That’sarealgoodfootball team.”
TheSlatersenteredthegameinthe last of the four District 11 4A playoff spotsandwillhavetheopportunityto play Blue Mountain next week, who entered the week just above Bangor in the district standings.
“We talked tonight about wanting to put this game behind us, in terms of the result, but take with us the way weplayed.Weneedtocomeoutnext week and play with the same intensity and desire,” Reduzzi said.